AT&T Stadium remains world-class, but the Dallas Cowboys’ home venue fell short here
With another Super Bowl being played, it’s another year a venue that opened with the idea that it would be an ideal destination for America’s biggest annual game did not come to fruition.
AT&T Stadium remains a first-class venue, but both it and DFW will never be a part of the NFL’s unofficial Super Bowl rotation. The attainable goal now is to just get it back once more, to right what was a historic wrong in the history of this area, and that world-class venue.
“Do we want the Super Bowl back? Hell yeah we want it back,” Arlington mayor Jim Ross told the Star-Telegram on Jan. 29 at the unveiling of the new UFL headquarter offices, less than one mile from AT&T Stadium and Globe Life Mall.
“We’re always going to be throwing our name in the hat. I can tell you we don’t have any secret thing we are holding right now. I don’t think there have been any decisions that have been made on anything about this.
“The NFL moves at their speed. There are a lot of cities vying for that position.”
Future Super Bowl decisions remain at the whim of the NFL. The league has announced Super Bowl sites through 2028; Santa Clara, L.A. and Atlanta are the three immediate NFL future Super Bowl locations.
Ross did not specify if Arlington is in the mix for the 2029 Super Bowl. He didn’t sound like it.
NFL future Super Bowls
Announcing future Super Bowl destinations is one of those paradoxes where it’s terribly, simply complex.
A holdup currently is not just the availability of the venues, and the cooperation of the city. Every city in North America wants to host a Super Bowl. Currently the issue as it relates to Super Bowls in 2029 and beyond has more to do with future NFL calendars.
Last year, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell floated the goal to expand the regular-season from 17 to 18 games. In 2021, the NFL regular-season expanded from 16 games to 17; it was the league’s first expansion of its regular-season schedule since 1978.
Goodell has made it clear he puts no value on preseason games, and that by expanding the regular season it would shrink the exhibition schedule. His vision is that the Super Bowl is played the Sunday before President’s Day.
To do this will require cooperation with the NFL Player’s Association during the next negotiation for a new collective bargaining agreement. The current contract between the NFL and the NFLPA expires after the 2030 season.
At the Super Bowl this week in New Orleans, NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell said, “No one wants to play an 18th game. No one.”
This is posturing between the two sides; if history is any indication, if the NFL wants an 18-game regular season, there will be an 18-game regular season.
And then there is the added complexity to the NFL’s regular-season games in international markets. The league only wants to add more of those dates, a plan that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones indirectly has opposed.
He has fought for years not to give up a Cowboys’ home game for the NFL’s international schedule, and thus far the Cowboys have been the “road” team in those few scenarios. In return, the NFL has not returned to Arlington for a Super Bowl since the city hosted it, on Feb. 6, 2011.
DFW’s Super Bowl was Super Bad
For the DFW residents who lived here during that infamous Super Bowl week, there is no drug powerful enough to erase that experience from a memory. DFW experienced a historically awful combination of snow and ice that lasted the entire week.
The weather created a myriad of scenarios that normally only last about 48 hours in this region before it “melts.” That week, nothing melted.
That week, snow and ice that accumulated atop the roof at AT&T Stadium fell and collapsed on at least six people. Both the NFL and the Cowboys were sued, which was settled out of court.
Before the actual Super Bowl itself, hundreds of fans who paid for tickets to watch the Packers play the Steelers discovered their seats weren’t their seats. In an effort to sell more tickets, the NFL approved the addition of 13,000 temporary seats in the end zones, but approximately 1,250 were deemed unsafe by inspectors.
That led to the league scrambling to put the fans in any seat possible shortly before kickoff. Seven fans sued the league, and were collectively awarded $76,000.
Since AT&T Stadium opened in May of 2009, both Los Angeles and Las Vegas now have NFL franchises in premiere facilities, something that was not a part of the landscape when Arlington and the Cowboys partnered to build AT&T Stadium.
By the time the 2028 Super Bowl is played, New Orleans, Glendale, Ariz. Santa Clara, Calif. and Los Angeles will have hosted the event twice since Arlington had it.
When AT&T Stadium was in the construction phase, Arlington city leaders believed the venue would last approximately 30 years. That is the standard timeline for most new arenas/stadiums.
“AT&T Stadium will last beyond 30 years. Jerry Jones just put $300 million in renovations in anticipation of the (2026) World Cup, and to elevate the entire stadium,” Ross said. “I don’t care where you go, this is still comparable to the best venue in the world. It’s second to none. That’s why we got nine World Cup games.”
After the ‘26 World Cup, the only major event AT&T Stadium will not have hosted is a major political national convention.
That and a second Super Bowl.
This story was originally published February 6, 2025 at 11:00 PM.
